Biennial Festival in Russia

Link Vostok is the sole western organizer and one of the co-founders of the International Festival of Movement and Dance on the Volga in Yaroslavl, Russia. This biennial event has held nine increasingly successful international dance festivals since 1993. It brings together Russian, North American and European artists to engage in creativedialogue and expand and deepen their vision and experience of movement and dance. The festival includes daily performances, intensive workshops, and panels and group discussions on relevant topics such as Cross-Cultural Choreography, Dance Writing and Contemporary Dance Criticism, Contemporary Dance in Russia and Eastern Europe and more. Link Vostok has brought more than 500 western artists from the United States and Europe to participate in the festival.

Cross Cultural Exchanges In addition to our festival program, Link Vostok creates reciprocal exchanges between Russia and Eastern European and United States artists. For instance, over sixty Twin Cities dance artists, critics and nonprofit administrators have participated in Link Vostok exchanges. In 2003, Link Vostok's Mississippi/Volga Dance Exchange gave Minnesota artists the opportunity to expand and build upon their artistic skills through choreographic collaborations, performances and workshops with four Russian dance companies and Russian dance photographer Vladimir Lupovskoi. Resulting work was performed to sold-out crowds, many of them first-time dance audiences, at the Southern Theater.

"A delightfully diverse group of modern, improvised and theatrical dances, much of the work is the result of collaborations between Russian artists and Twin Cities dancers and choreographers, emphasizing the value of that cross-pollination of movement vocabularies and cultures." (Camille LeFevre, Star Tribune) 2012 marks the fourth Mississippi/Volga dance festival to be held in Minneapolis.

Link Vostok has also actively produced performance events at the Russian State Art Museum five times in St. Petersburg, Russia and at Kannon Dance and School festivals and events, also in St. Petersburg.